Landing Page Optimisation

A landing page is a page on your website that exists to persuade those that land on it (normally via a search result or a paid advert) to take a specific action that you want them to take. Example actions that you might want someone to take include: making a purchase, phoning you, completing a form, downloading a file or viewing a video.

Optimising your landing pages is important because getting people to click through to your website is only the half-way point. You don’t just want people to see your site – you want them to both see it and then take a specific action, which is why landing page optimisation goes beyond just technical on-site optimisation and using keywords correctly.

Using only a single landing page (like your homepage) drastically reduces your optimisation options, which means less visitors will take the action that you want them to. How many landing pages you need depends on how many keywords you’re targeting. If your business is targeting multiple keywords then you should set-up multiple landing pages, and optimise each one for a specific keyword.

You should consider landing page optimisation as a priority step in the SEO process because it’s often the quickest way to increase your ROI. For example, if your website currently gets 1000 visitors a month and 2% of those become a customer, doubling that conversion rate to 4% will often be quicker, and easier, than doubling the number of visitors your site gets to 2000 a month, and yet will have the same effect.

Landing Page Optimisation Tips & Advice

Know the purpose of each landing page before creating it. Decide on the one thing that you most want visitors to the page do and then create the whole page with that goal in mind.

Show people what they’re expecting to see. Send people to a page that has content that’s directly relevant to the content promised in the link they clicked on to get there.

Provide a consistent experience from start to finish. The link or ad that people click on, to the headline, copy and call to action on the landing page, should align in terms of language, tone, style, etc.

Ensure every aspect of the page has a specific purpose. Anything that isn’t in some way contributing to making people taking action is distracting them from taking it.

Tell people exactly what the steps in the process are. I want you to do A. If you do A, I will then do B. When I do B, you will get C.

Make it clear what you want people to do. If you want people to call you, tell them to call you. If you want them to click on something, tell them to click on something.

Have a clear and prominent call to action. Set it apart from the rest of the copy, keep it under 150 characters, and start it with a verb (go, click, buy, etc.).

Give people a reason to act straight away. If they leave your landing page without taking action then there’s only a small chance that they’ll come back later on to do so.

Don’t give people too many options. The more there are, the more distracted and confused people become, and the more distracted and confused they are, the less likely they are to take the action that you want them to.

Only tell people what they need to know. If you tell people more than they need to know then they’ll be less likely to take in and remember the important parts.

Pre-empt the questions that people may have. Don’t make them contact you for answers as most people won’t bother to do so.

Make the first few lines of text really count. Most people will at least read the start of what you have to tell them, at which point they’ll decide whether to read more or leave.

Prioritise factual information over marketing talk. People want to know about your product/service, not just how great you think that it is.

Focus on the benefits of your product/service instead of the features. As people care less about what it can do than they do about how it will improve an aspect of their life.

Make it easy for people to skim read. Someone looking at your landing page should be able to know what the page is about and what you want them to do within 5 seconds of looking at it.

Don’t make people scroll down to see what you really want them to see. Because anything that requires scrolling may never be seen by some people.

Add relevant images. Images of products, services in action and/or employees build trust with people and make a landing page look visually more attractive.

Add a video. As a significant number of people prefer to take in information by watching a video instead of reading text.

Make it simple for people to share the page. If people can share/like/tweet the page by just clicking a button then they’ll be more likely to do so.

List the full postal address of your business. As any legitimate business should be open about where they’re based even if there’s no reason for people to visit them there.

List your phone number. Because people like the security of knowing that they can pick up the phone and talk to someone if they have a question or a problem, even though very few people will actually do so.

Shorten and incentivise contact forms. Asking for less information, and giving people a reason (such as a discount or free report) to complete the form, will increase the number of submissions.

Give people alternative methods of contacting you. Because if someone’s preferred method of communication isn’t available then it’s less likely that they’ll contact you.

State all relevant timings (opening hours, response times, delivery times, etc.). As knowing when something will happen is a factor in peoples’ minds when deciding if they should take action.

Include testimonials from past customers. Because people tend to trust them even though it’s common knowledge that businesses only display ones that are highly positive about them.

Add recognisable logos and symbols. These could be associations you’re part of, newspapers or journals you’ve been mentioned in, or payment methods that you accept.

Link to your social media profile pages. As having likes, followers, connections, etc. makes your business seem more trustworthy and popular.

Include keywords in the url and title tag. Doing so makes a landing page more visible in search engines and should increase the number of visitors it gets.

Cater for different devices and screen resolutions. Your landing page should look good and be equally usable on smartphones, tablets, laptops and desktops.

Test everything. Never stop the process of reviewing and refining because even a small adjustment to wording, colours, positioning, etc. can make a big difference.

Steve – The SEO Consultant

I'm a freelance SEO consultant who specialises in SEO for small businesses. I have helped many businesses get more visitors to, and make more sales from, their websites. I can help your business achieve this too. If your business's website is under-performing, and you need an SEO service to help you reach its full potential, then contact me.